He's lucky to be alive. That place is pretty unforgiving. When it comes to being rugged, it reminds me of some of the area we hike and explore out west.
I saw that video on Shug's channel. That dude is making a heck of a recovery. Thankful it wasn't worse
i read the NCSAR report on that, they provided it to my fire dept as a case study. the gorge can be a rough place. haven't seen the video until now. getting a UH-60 response in this part of WNC is super difficult. 4hr MINIMUM response time to get the bird in the air. they will only go if there is a LZ certified IC on scene, and they don't take you to the hospital - the fly back to their home base where an ambulance is waiting. we've never had to call in a 60 in our area, but we get air evacs on a fairly regular basis. most of the pilots for Regional One and MAMA are in the guard or reserve and have flown plenty of these kinds of missions for folks who get in a bad spot during hiking season.. here's the hiker's follow up video:
